Posts tagged ‘Jaws’

The garden snail comes out mostly at night to feed on leaves and other plant food. The snail’s mouth is under its head. It has no chewing jaws. To help it get its food, the snail’s mouth is equipped with a special tongue that is covered with hundreds of tiny teeth.

It is called the “radula” (RAJ-uh-luh). The rasp-like radula shreds and scrapes bits of food into the snail’s mouth as the snail crawls along. The snail finds its food with two pairs of tentacles on its head. The shorter pair is used for smelling on the tip of each of the longer tentacles is an eye. – Dick Rogers

In South American rivers swims one of the world’s most dangerous fish—the piranha. This savage fish is only ten or so inches long, but its teeth are so sharp and its jaws are so strong, it can chop a piece of flesh from an animal or a human as neatly as a razor. Piranhas often travel in schools of several hundred.

Their diet usually consists of other fish. But if an animal happens to be in the water near a school of hungry piranhas, they attack and devour it instantly. Animals as bit as a horse have been eaten down to a bare skeleton in only a few minutes. – Dick Rogers

The largest known living shark is the whale shark which is often more than 50 feet long and weights several tons. It is also the biggest of all fishes.

(The whale, which is larger and resembles a fish, is not a fish but a mammal.)

Shark

Whale sharks can easily be recognized by the lines of pale spots on a grayish body, as well as by their huge size.

Curiously enough, this biggest shark of all is completely harmless to man. Though it has jaws wide enough to swallow a man, the whale shark lives peacefully in the warm sea, eating seaweed and small fish.

Sharks have the reputation for being among the most dangerous of sea creatures.

There are many kinds of sharks, and while some are quite fierce, the surprising thing is that most kinds of sharks are quite harmless.

The great white shark is sometimes called the most dangerous of sharks. It may grow to be 35 feet long and will have no hesitation about making a meal of a swimmer. – Dick Rogers